Last year we did a santa shop and the items that
we received were not of good quality and were not
things that we would have purchased ourselves. How did you negotiate with your local dollar store to buy and return items for your holiday store. Do you have a copy of a contract that would be useful? I think this is a great ideal that you get to pick out the items you want to sell. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Most years we were lucky to break even. Since most of our kids are low income, we had to cover the difference that they didnt have. But like I said in a previous message, and have seen others say, this isnt a fundraiser for us, just a way for the kids to shop alone, and cheap. I need to find a tactful way to inform parents and a certain board member of this fact.

I should have added that we marked everything up to the nearest .25 (if our cost was .15, we made a dime), only because of the change issue. It enabled us to allow some of the lower income kids to slide a little bit (we also had two nickel gifts available). Some items we didn't mark up at all because it was either already high enough priced or it was already at the quarter mark. We made over $3000. We had no intention of making anything, other than the slight mark up so that making change for the children would be easy for us to do and easy for them to understand. I was shocked that we made so much from such a tiny mark up. There is money to be made in Santa Shops, and some schools run it as their main fundraiser. We ran it for the kids and made money by default.

The past 2 or 3 years we have purchased items from the "Dollar Tree" and also from Kipp magazine for our Santa's Workshop. I also have "been there done that" as far as doing much of the volunteer work. We have a new board this year with me being President for the first time. I am wondering if we choose to go with a company for this if most of you break even? We don't use this as a fund raiser either however, we do make a few $100 some years. I received some info from Gifts Galore out of Midlothian, IL. Anybody have any comments?

Last year, we did Jingle Bell Shop. The company, Jingle Bell Shop, was great - in the beginning. They provided the table cloths, the gift bags (in several different sizes, as well as each child getting a big bag to carry all their gift wrapped and loose items in). They overnighted merchandise when we needed them to, at their expense. The only thing was, in the end, they didn't follow through replacing returned, broken items and they didn't respond regarding the final expenses vs product. I wasn't sure if our totals were all correct, and they never confirmed - just cashed the check and we never heard from them again... until this year that is...lol...
The problems we encountered were on our end. It takes several parents several hours to set one up properly. We had 3 parents (besides myself) who showed up, worked an hour and then left. It ended up being me, myself and I setting the majority of the store up - clearly pricing items, dividing items into table catogories (i.e. Mom and Dad table, Grandparents table, Sister and Brother table, Relatives and Friends table), placing the stock in ways that made it easy to get to, etc. The same was true when it came time to put everything back into the boxes correctly. Me, myself and I did 90% of that job as well, taking several 6 hour days long after the smiling faces were gone. Another problem was staffing. It would have been easier with 4 parents, one to run the register and one parent for each table. Parents would work for an hour and leave. Some just never showed up, some called an hour before they were to help and said they just weren't coming for whatever reason. Teachers dropped their students off at the door and left, leaving the parents to deal with sometimes extremely difficult children who had no concept of spending or budgeting. The hours that we were open turned into a nightmare because 1/2 hour before and after school were not enough, even though each class was given 40 minutes to do their shopping during school hours.
I will admit that some of the stuff was pretty cheap and we knew it wasn't going to last long, but the price ranges were good for even the smallest budget, from a nickel up to ten dollars. A quarter would buy 5 small gifts and that was the original goal - to provide something for everyone to give their Mom and Dad a gift. I think some people lost sight of that goal and of the age old adage "It isn't the gift, it's the thought". When a first grader takes out the trash to earn a nickel, it shouldn't matter that the gift was cheap or childish, it should matter that the child earned it and gave it with love.
In the end, I would say that 1) Make sure you have adaquate staff to set up, tear down, and work the shop itself 2) Make sure that you have something in every price range (Jingle Bell Shop GAVE us 144 items free, cheap things like plastic bracelets, magnifying glasses, puzzles, etc. that we could have sold for a penny apiece, but we used those for another promotion) 3) Be sure to send a note home explaining that while some of the gifts ARE cheap and cheesy, it is the thought that counts, not the actual gift.
Would I do it again? Yes. The children learned a lot from it. They learned how to manage money, budget money, count money. They learned the joy of earning money that wouldn't be spent on themselves, thus learning the joy of giving.

In regards to the "RAFFLE", I guess that this is one of those rare times when only having a few people on the board helps. Because I am the only person willing to take on the Holiday Shop it gets run the way I want it to. When I approached the teachers about bringing their class in to the store, I received a few "I don't think we will be coming in, there are a few students that won't have any money and it is not nice for them." So I just made sure that those students who needed the money, got it. I originally had 13 names or students, but made up a few extra gift certificates and if a child needed the money, he or she got it. I also did not count pennies, or nickles, dimes and sometimes not even dollars. Actually, I am amazed that we did not come up really short. I figured that if we did, I would put in the difference, I did not have to though.